Jake G.
Principal investigator for Environmental Monitoring
Posters for Fall 22 and Spring 23
Hi, I’m Jake. I am one of the main investigates in environmental science and engineering at WISRD and for the early part of 2022, I studied solar power and how solar panels gain energy. While studying I decided to shift my focus to a broad view of environmental studies and opposed a weather balloon launch that is predicted to launch 2024.
JAKE G
Tue Aug 23
Today is my first day at wisrd and I am interested in continuing my studies in solar power because I made a solar power phone charger last year.
Tue Sep 13
P: The federal government lets you claim 26% of the total cost of the solar power installation giving you a 22% tax credit. Obviously solar panels would save money in the long run but overall it is a long term iverstment. With the size of the school it will reduce emission costs by at least 25% because of how much direct sunlight the roof on the school is in in the later part of a day. Solar panels are able to work during outages.
C: The average cost of sola panels are 13,500 dollars but some are more expneive and less due to their size. If containing to power from the usn enough power storage space must be available otherwise it is a safety risk.
The states sith most solar power are California, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Arizona. States witht he most tax credit for solar panels are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts.
Cleaning solar panels are a key part of having and maintaining solar panels because dirt is able to block out amounts of sunlights due the conentets of the dirt. You are able to clean solar panels with water which is lucky considering that they gather all the first from the sky above. I was thinking that we could a make a system that runs on a sun dial type timer where it sees the that sun goes down and a shade comes over.
Monocrystalline panels have the highest efficiency rating of any type of solar panel, reaching over 20%. This means that these can convert 20% of sunlight into usable energy. Monocrystaline is hard to find to buy by itself and the cyrtsil by itself is an alumunuim product meaning hatnit hard to buy in a pure form.
Wednesday September 27
Last week is pent time researching inside solar panels and finding out about how the different types of cells work together. I also researched how much it is able to produce from just direct light, so I used an electricity measurer (will find out the name for it) I took solar panels with the cover and tested them with and without the glass of the solar panels because the work I did where I bisected solar panels and removed the glass looked at the inside of the panel. I then took two tests one with the glass and one without the one with the glass measured 0.10 volts and then the one without measured 0.21 volts.
Since the begging of this year in WISRD I have collected all the parts necessary for the completion of the weather balloon, being the finishing of the altimeter, the vertices for the pyramid, and the tracker and go pro. Last night was poster night and I talked with some people that gave me some ideas on how to improve I have also finished the altimeter and gotten in contact with the people at the Mojave Aiport.
Today is Thursday 27, I just had a Zoom meeting with the people at Mojave airport and they told me there are many things I would have to go through to contact many different people before I even launch the balloon. The Mojave air space is incredibly complicated and they suggested that we launch from a different area with no military and more southern.
I have decided to make a plan for this year so I am able to control where the balloon goes and have a camera on it, as well as launch it from the school. We are going to put an extremely long string onto the balloon so we are able to control it and directly control it from the ground and then pull it down.
Weather Balloon Plans
The balloon was are planning to launch has a payload of six pounds and is a square pyramid with a 1 square-foot base. The balloon we are launching is destined to reach a height of 20,000 feet and will be in the air for 4-6 hours of the day. We will take our information for the wind speed and direction from the NOAA organization, so we have a reliable source of information when we launch.
New school year
I have started to take my studies into kinesiology as well as continuing into environmental studies, today I was experimenting with balloons and the blue that was originally meant to be 36 inches and it blew to 4.5 ft. It extremely loud and scared the whole school but I was able to take in important Information.
Tue September 19
Currently, we are working with the muscle sensor and emg. I am getting much better at understanding coding and how to work small circuits and try and keep everyone on track. I am very excited to see where this project goes it could be very successful as we making progress fast as we got setup working with all the parts there and I believe that next class we could start recording data which could lead to starting the actual experiment part of the class with the data.
Friday, Sep 29
This week in WISRD has been another learning week where I have learned more about how to code and how to work the Arduino and muscle sensor I have learned how to use the meg and I am struggling with coding it and getting it to work. I have managed to get the wire to connect but the problems I am having concern obtaining the information from the actual sensor. I may try and use the myoware with the board next week to see if that works but if it doesn’t I may have to relook and take a new approach.
Wed Nov 9
This week in WISRD I have been primarily focused on my inquire article on how you could grow as a child or teenager. But primarily I want to be more focused on my weather ballon again as that is a project I have more interest in, and I have a hook with a hole coming in so I can build a more functional design of the balloon that I can test at school, then I will run some tests launching it into the air after, I will start to email airports and NASA about the airspace in Southern California.
Jan 29,
It’s been a very long time since I last added to my journal but since then I have assembled my balloon parts and collected the parents necessary for the balloon including a parachute and a real weather balloon that was up to Bob’s acceptance level. I have finished the nonrecording code and will soon produce the self-reporting code that will report it onto an SD card. I have also been majorly involved in the Kinesiology lab and have been heavily involved in the experiments that they have been doing and have been experimented on as well as helping g record their other experiments that involve music’s effect on the brain and how it can improve performance. I plan to continue contributing to the Kin. lab and helping them support their experiments. I also plan to finish assembling the balloon and start emailing people again to find out where to get permits for the thing.
Mar 20
It’s been a very long time since I’ve last edited and I have made lots of progress on my balloon. the final adjustments for the test launch have been made and the plan to test launch will be done. I have started work with more EMG sensors and will continue to help and further experiment in the kinesiology lab.
May 6
The poster session was a good experience and I learned a lot about the foundation of how to run a project a lot more reliably and how I should approach new projects going forward. I received a lot of positive feedback on my poster and support on what I should do to take my project to the next step. I have been still reaching out to many sources and airports to try and get permission to launch but it is looking unlikely and we may just have to launch without permission next year. Despite this, I have also been working with the kinesiology group on their project with a working muscle sensor and we have found to work the gain and plan to lab very soon on specific muscle group experiments.